G
Guest_Gingee_*
Guest
I was wondering how many points turns into how many dollars on your next Amtrak trip. Also, both my husband and I are signed up. Can we combine the points for one trip?
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You cannot combine points from two people into one account.
I'm not quite sure what you are asking in the first part of your question, hopefully this answers it. You get two points for each dollar spent on the ticket.
Note that only one of your tickets gets the charge for the sleeper, the other ticket will just be railfare.
I'm not quite sure what you are asking in the first part of your question, hopefully this answers it. You get two points for each dollar spent on the ticket.
Note that only one of your tickets gets the charge for the sleeper, the other ticket will just be railfare.
You redeem your points for Amtrak travel, based on award charts shown at http://www.amtrakguestrewards.com
You can also redeem your points for other things.
You can also redeem your points for other things.
cbender
Service Attendant
It sounds like your asking about the value of points. I think it is going to completely depend on where you are traveling. I get a pretty good value by using my points in the NE corridor (~$0.03/point). I imagine the value will be somewhat less on most long distance trains.
I've made a number of trips, LD and otherwise, in the last 4 years, and still don't have enough for a zone to zone coach ticket. I think the key is using the Guest Rewards charge card and paying for everything you do in life with that. Then you will build up the points quickly. I happen to use a hotel card and get lots of free nights.
If you use an Amtrak affinity credit card to buy all of the tickets for your party, doesn't that in effect get you guest rewards points from someone else's tickets? It doesn't literally get you points for the travel on the other tickets, but it does give you points for purchasing the tickets....? (I don't have one of those cards, so I don't have personal experience of it.)
Yes, that would work in some sense to get points for the tickets WPK. You'd get 1 point for each dollar spent on the tickets. But the two points per dollar will still go to the person traveling on the ticket.
G
Guest
Guest
Actually, a quick clarification. You'd get 2 points for every dollar you spend on Amtrak tickets if you have the platinum card. So it's a pretty good deal. Keep in mind those points don't count toward Select status, however. I've also wondered for a while how they figure this out. Does Arrow tell them? The reason I'm wondering is whether or not tickets and upgrades purchased on board are caught for double points in those cases. The same goes for food purchases. I've never been bored enough to sit down with a calculator and see.
-Rafi
It looks like using the Amtrak Mastercard you earn 1 point/dollar on all purchases and 2 points/dollar on Amtrak. The question is what is an Amtrak reward point worth? 1-3 cents?
I have a Costco AMEX card and it offers 1% on purchases, 2% on "all" travel, and 3% on restaurants.
Which is better in the long run? It's hard to compare without an actual cash value on Amtrak's card.
I have a Costco AMEX card and it offers 1% on purchases, 2% on "all" travel, and 3% on restaurants.
Which is better in the long run? It's hard to compare without an actual cash value on Amtrak's card.
G
Guest
Guest
If you're going for cash or cash equivalents, yes, a cash-back card like the Costco Amex is better. But the cents per point value can get quite good when redeeming points for Amtrak travel, especially sleeper travel. 15,000 Guest Rewards points will get you a one-zone sleeper award. That might have a value of $600-800, or even more if you plan the right route!
Well my recent round the country trip, that I reported live in our Travelouge forum here, would have cost me $3,517.25. That was with me using a AAA discount and a senior discount for my mother. I will grant you that this trip was planned somewhat last minute, so those prices were obtained just 2 weeks before departure. Had I booked the trip months earlier, I'm sure that I could have saved some money.
I turned in 90,000 AGR points for that trip, which works out to about 3.9 cents per point.
How were those points accumulated? Riding trains, credit card, hotels stays that convert to points?
How long did it take to accumulate them, about?
Just curious
The Metropolitan
OBS Chief
Given that the award points have a minimum threshold of 100 points per trip, for those who typically book low value trips, their value can be greater as a result of this minimum.
For example next week, I have training at BWI Airport. For one of the days, I've opted to spend $9.35 to ride the Corridor for 15 minutes on the one stop ride from Baltimore to BWI, mainly to have a reason to add to the points.
As I've said before, I still envy the person who can use the Ann Rutledge as a commuter train from Chicago to either Summit or Joliet every morning, spending $2 or $5 and getting 100 AGR points for each trip!
Doing this, after 250 days of work commuting, they've spent $500 or $1250, and would now have 25,000!!! AGR points for a really nice vacation!
For example next week, I have training at BWI Airport. For one of the days, I've opted to spend $9.35 to ride the Corridor for 15 minutes on the one stop ride from Baltimore to BWI, mainly to have a reason to add to the points.
As I've said before, I still envy the person who can use the Ann Rutledge as a commuter train from Chicago to either Summit or Joliet every morning, spending $2 or $5 and getting 100 AGR points for each trip!
Doing this, after 250 days of work commuting, they've spent $500 or $1250, and would now have 25,000!!! AGR points for a really nice vacation!
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RailFanLNK
Conductor
Its been my understanding that if you use the AGR CC, you get triple points for Amtrak travel. Double points for the cost of the fare and you still get 1 point per dollor on the fare that is also being put on your CC. I have amassed about 12,000 pts on mine by using my CC for everything. I enrolled in April '06. You must be able to pay it all off at the end of the month though. I've even thought of using it for my house payment as well.
The points were accumulated only from riding, bonuses, and Hilton Honor's (HH) points. I probably should sign up for the AGR credit card, but I've just never gotten around to doing so. In part because I've already got enough other credit cards.
Now to turn to your other question, I had last turned in points back in June of 2005, when I used up 55,000 points for the OTOL Eagle Fest. That left me with a balance of just over 30,000. Since that point I've racked up 10,500 points riding trains, mainly Acela's where the points rack up faster than normal. Since I'm at the Select Plus level that netted me another 5,250 with my bonus points. Then as a member of HH, I tend to stay at Hilton Family hotels, since I get 500 AGR points with each stay. Since June of 05 that netted me a bit over 12,000 points.
Finally this past year Amtrak has been very good to Acela riders with several bonus oportunities, where one could get double or triple points for riding during certain time periods. Those bonuses netted me almost 24,000 points. And then being a few points short, since there are no Hilton's in Timmins Ontario, I stay at Days Inn. So I traded in some of their points for 3,200 AGR points to hit the required 90,000 for this trip.
That however basically wipped out my account, leaving me with only about 1,000 points. Of course my trip included a few Hilton stays, as well as a paid roundtrip from LA to San Diego, so already my balance is growing once again.
Bigval109
OBS Chief
I received double points for my meals on board the train when I paid with my guest rewards MC
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With the Amtrak MasterCard, any charge that comes through with the Payee being Amtrak will get two points per dollar. That could be tickets, on-board meals, or even an engineers cap from the Amtrak store. If the Payee is Amtrak, the one point per dollar doubles to two.
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I use the AGR MasterCard for nearly everything, so combined with my rail travels, I cash in points for tickets at least once a year.
I use a Marriott card and receive enough points for 5-6 hotels stays a year.
Problem is, there are so many cards out there that give points, its hard to know what the best deal is.
I use one for grocery points, one for gasoline rebates, etc, etc.
Guess if I combined them all to one it would really rack up points.
So after purchasing every stick of gum on my credit card and going out of my way to take every train I can I've racked up 50K in miles. Any suggestions on how to spend these? The tough part is I'd like to start in either Topeka, KS or Lincoln, NE. (now you know why I have to go out of my way) I know the CZ pretty well and the Chief between TOP and CHI so I'd like to make sure I get on some other lines
One thought is to do some coach time and do TOP-LAX LAX-SEA and SEA to CHI and CHI to LNK. (Hey maybe I could get Julie drunk on the phone have her bill it as 1 zone )
Thanks.
One thought is to do some coach time and do TOP-LAX LAX-SEA and SEA to CHI and CHI to LNK. (Hey maybe I could get Julie drunk on the phone have her bill it as 1 zone
)Thanks.
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